Kara and Lee do it right
by Lerrydia
Summary: It's the end of the show. We all know what happened. Well, this is what should have happened. Kara and Lee finally do it right.
1. Chapter 1

Lee slowly raised his hand as the raptor rose into the clear sky. Kara raised hers beside him, a small, silent salute of farewell. Side by side, they stood on the new Earth as the tiny ship disappeared from view, taking Admiral Adama and President Roslin with it. 'I guess that's it,' Lee said quietly, half-turning to Kara as he spoke. 'They won't be coming back.' Kara nodded in affirmation.

'What will you do now, Lee?' She asked, bland curiosity in her voice. Lee stood still for a moment, closing his eyes as the possibilities hit him. He could do anything. This was a new world. As he stood and considered, he felt the strangest feeling on his face. It took him a moment to realise that the feeling was the sun.

All day, barely remembered scents had been assaulting him, sharp and tangy, dusty, clear. No chemical smell of disinfectant, no familiar sweaty, musty whiff as he entered a room, although of course, there were no rooms to enter, not yet. In fact, now that he stopped to consider, he hadn't smelled a human being all day. There was so much space, so much land, rolling as far as his eyes could see, and from what he had seen from above, even further than that. This land was unspoiled, beautiful. Rich. It was almost too much to take.

Opening his eyes, he took in the glorious green-gold of the shifting long grasses that blanketed the land they now called Africa. A rustling sound gently met his ears, unmarred by the whir of an engine, the blast of a gun. Nothing but the light shifting of grasses, the distant trumpet of beasts, the trickle of a stream flowing to meet a great river of clear, drinkable water. And what lay beyond? This beauty, as wonderful as it was, was only one of the many kinds that this land had to offer. He was sure of it. He knew, with absolute certainty, what he wanted to do now that he was here on this land.

Still gazing out across the endless plains, Lee took a deep breath of clear, dusty, sun-tanged air. He remembered now, how a hot sun gave a scent to everything. A just-baked scent. He could smell Kara – Starbuck – behind him, clearer than he could ever remember. They had bathed in the river along with the others earlier that day, throwing their clothes on the banks in their eagerness to be immersed in clean water, the chill of each splash a marked change from the heat of the sun. A breathless, tingling sensation. And now she smelled like new rain as it drifted down, raised dust and let the sun soak through it, until it was nothing but a mist. He suddenly wondered what her hair smelled like, clean and lighter blonde, free of chemicals, free of fear-sweat and stress.

'I know what I'm going to do,' he said, turning to her with a smile filled with optimism, blue-eyed hope. 'I'm going to explore. I always thought that when we finally found Earth I would kick back, you know, relax. But I want to see this land. I can't believe I'm saying this – it sounds so exhausting! But I want to find everything this land has to offer. That's what I'm going to do.' He nodded firmly. 'What do you want to do?' He asked her. The hope in his voice was tinged with a bone-deep wariness borne of years of her friendship.

Kara looked at him for a moment, a serious light in her usually mocking eyes. Her upper lip firmed, causing a sensuous ridge to appear around her unusually wide mouth, blatantly defining it, making Lee shift uncomfortably. Her mouth always undid him, no matter her mood. Angry. Sad. Sarcastic. Blinking, he snapped his mind back, concentrating instead on her eyes, the serious look of them. He shoved his hands in his pockets, squared his muscular shoulders inside his gray tank. It was bad news. He could tell.

'I think I'll be going away from here,' she said. Nodded her head, fine strands of blonde caressing the strong, almost masculine line of her neck. The sight of this - the everlasting contrast that was Starbuck - squeezed his heart until he thought it might burst. 'Yep,' she repeated. 'I think it's time to go.' Lee let his breath out with a sigh and nodded, heart wedged high in his throat, waiting for the next words – 'with you'.

They didn't come. Even with the new Earth's silence roaring in his ears, he couldn't have missed them. Lee felt a sudden breeze sluice his face, causing tears to spring to his eyes. He knew her. Knew it had been unlikely. But they had shared so much – he still wished...

Lee squared his jaw and swung his body around, ready to say something, to make her stay. A glaring emptiness met his eyes. She was not there. The lack of her was a blot on the landscape. He shook his head, trying to clear it, to make her reappear. She had said she would leave – but surely not now. Not like this. Did she not even want to say goodbye?

Did she not feel anything for him at all?

Falling slowly to his knees, Lee ignored the sun, the rich scents, the plaguing tickle of the grass on his face. He bent his forehead to the warm earth. She was gone. But he loved her. Had loved her ever since he first set eyes on her, so many years ago on Caprica, a cheap bouquet of flowers clutched in his hands. At the door of his brother's house. At that moment so awkward and shy it had almost been as though he had arrived for a date, instead of for dinner with his brother and his brother's girlfriend.

She had opened the door and looked straight in his eyes, that long, crooked grin flung across her face in welcome. And he had felt something click. Her. She had cracked his heart open in a single moment, with the absolute strength of her presence. And later, with her humour, her smart-ass remarks, the rightness of her with him. And then with her anger, her brokenness that she had let only him see. The fragile core that the outward strength of her masked. He loved it all.

Closing his eyes against the beauty around him, Lee shut it all out. She was gone.

She was gone.

Kara watched as Lee fell to his knees and pressed his forehead to the hard earth. His obvious despair was amazingly arousing, his desolation over losing her like an affirmation of faith. She had let him down before, many times. On New Caprica. On Galactica. On the algae planet. It felt to her like she had done nothing but hurt him – and for what reason? She just couldn't bear to love him. He mattered too much. Leaving him first had seemed easier - he couldn't leave her, then. Yet here he was, pressed against the ground as though it might part its grassy banks and swallow him, despair and all, until he was as gone as she. She had intended to leave. But it was impossible. Leaving Lee Adama – Captain Apollo – had never quite been possible for her.

Breathing in deep, Kara prepared to do battle with her own soul. The only time that she had told the truth – on New Caprica, under the faint stars, in the dust and dirt and scrubby brush of that fallow land, when she had screamed out her love for him like a damned cliché in the darkness – she had left him the next morning, run away from her fear into Anders' waiting arms. She had married that man. Had married Anders, abandoned Lee in her sick fear, the denial that had hit her seconds after she uttered the truth. It was easier, she had told herself. But it was anything but.

Lee was sitting up now, the line of his back straight and true even in sadness, as she imagined it must have been that morning when he had woken up alone. The back of his head in this clear, golden light was the most beautiful thing she had ever seen. She had seen him look so many different ways – sweaty and fear-filled, angry with his strong jaw clenched in rage at her, face lit up with a laugh in even the direst situation, a smile like light as they spoke, and that bland mask of duty. Every sight of him was stored deep in her memory. She slipped over the land very quietly, trying not to crackle the grass. Lee gazed endlessly into the distance. Kara sat directly behind him, reaching her hands forward, the long supple fingers slipping over his cotton tank, around his hard stomach.

Lee felt a hand on his stomach and snapped to with a start. His whole body tightened and he spun around, flinging the hand away, reaching for a gun he no longer had. His eyes met Kara's and he froze. Her wide mouth was pinched in a smile, the woman in her gaze so unlike her that he paused and just drank it in, cool, sweet water for a parched man. The despair he had felt didn't leave, but it lessened a bit. He gripped her arms. She wasn't leaving him again.

Kara didn't say a word, she just stared at him. Her eyes were angled slantways to the sun and he noticed that the new bright light changed them from hazel to a deep, clear green, chasing away all of the darkness. The unashamed brightness of that green dredged up a deep memory, of Starbuck - habitually dirty, messy, somewhat masculine Starbuck - wearing a dress of that same deep green. A dress that had hugged her amazing body, swept its way over her curves so snugly that he had felt jealous of it. Her breasts had looked so soft in that gods-damned dress; he had immediately ached to touch them. He didn't think he had even noticed that she had breasts before then.

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	2. Chapter 2

The challenge in her eyes as she asked him to dance had both confused and aroused him. He had wanted her since he had first met her, but that night had changed the want into a sharp, almost painful longing, and he had swept her up in his arms to convince her that she should long for him, too. He had seen it in her eyes, that night. Love had just bobbed up to the surface, and she let him see it for a brief moment – the truth, he thought – before she had buried it again, deep under layers of self-loathing and destruction. He had slid his arms over her shoulders, pulled her close, tried to bring it back. But she had left him after one dance, had left with the Vice-President of the colonies. She had frakked him. Frakked him, and not Lee – why not Lee?

He couldn't know that she had cried out Lee's name that night, helplessly. How much she had wished it had been him.

Starbuck always made his body feel tight, so much anger and want. She gazed at him still, and he couldn't tell what it was in her eyes, not exactly. She had showed him brief glimpses over the years, just the same as that first night. Glimpses of truth, of love. So quickly hidden he sometimes doubted his own eyes. Every time it left he felt lost, hurt – but those glimpses intrigued him, like a flash of a lady's ankle in the time of the Lords of Kobol. He longed to bring it back. To know more.

Neither Lee nor Kara moved. A slight breeze stirred Kara's hair, causing the fine pale strands to release a scent so powerful that Lee's stomach clenched. Rain, yes, sun, yes, but heat – pure, human heat – and a smell he had never smelled before, not even that one time they had made love. Stripped of all the man-made things - chemicals, shampoo, recycled water - they were down to just each other, the pure, animal scents of clean human. He was smelling pure Kara. It was enough to drive him mad.

Lee's strong hands still gripped the soft skin of her arms, but it was not enough. He leaned forward slowly and buried his face in the richness of her hair, fighting the urge to push her to the ground. Slowly, he thought, gritting his teeth. She's already left once. Don't scare her off. Slowly.

Kara felt the push of Lee's face against her neck, his whole body tensed up against hers. His face was buried in her hair. She wanted to see it. Even though it was just him and her, no other beings around, she knew now that he was the most beautiful man that she had ever seen. His eyes. His axe-shaped jaw. That look he got sometimes, when he thought that she wasn't looking, like she was the only person in the world.

Grabbing his shoulders, she paused for a moment, feeling the strength of them, solid safety under her fingertips. Then she pushed him away. Lee made a sound of protest, his eyes immediately flaring blue, hurt – but she held him just in front of her, his face the only thing in her vision. 'Gods, Lee ...' she muttered. She leaned forward, and he started back, but she held him. 'It's okay,' she said. 'Gods know why, but it is. Please ...' She leaned forward again and this time she kissed him, her lips just touching his, a gentle brush. He didn't move. She couldn't even feel him breathe. Then, just when she thought she would have to pull away, he kissed her back, sudden, fierce. Her gentle kiss was blown away as though it had never been, eradicated beneath the force of his lips. His hands gripped her body, first her head, her cheek, then slid down to her shoulders , the curve of her waist.

Their bodies met from the top to the bottom, and Starbuck curved her body into Lee's still further, as though she might actually merge herself with him. She was blazing hot, and it wasn't just the sun. Lee kissed her deeper, thrusting his body against hers and his tongue inside her mouth. She welcomed it. They were still standing, pushing against each other as though each stood against a wall, though they were the only thing holding each other up. Lee made a helpless sound as Kara ran her hands up his back, slipping them under his cotton tank. He pulled back as she slid his shirt off so that his pale, lean, muscular torso was exposed. A slight stippling of dark hair only made the skin seem lighter, almost translucent from years living in space without natural light. His body was haloed from behind, lit up all around as though he glowed from inside. Kara stood, panting, and watched him, wondering what he'd do next.

Lee felt the heat of the new sun on his back and sighed, watching her. She had kissed him first. That soft brush of her lips had been like torture, even though he had warned himself to go slow, not to rush. She had started it, he reasoned. And now she stood so far from him, her pale skin and pale hair blending into the bright background as though she barely existed. Her chest rose and fell, her breathing laboured, and he recalled the fluid feel of her body under his hands, the supple writhe of full flesh. They had made love before, true. And it had been wonderful. But this was different, somehow – it felt to Lee that there was so much more riding on it, this time. He was determined not to fail.

Squaring his bare, well-muscled shoulders, Lee strode the several feet that separated them, stopping right before Kara's face. They both knew that they had chemistry. Hell, it was what had gotten them into trouble so many times – even to the point of cheating on their spouses. He wanted to live the rest of his life with her. He had to convince her to stay.

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	3. Chapter 3

Staring into her eyes, he saw that the old challenge was back – the 'I dare you' that she used to mask her true feelings. Lee was suddenly sick of seeing that look. 'Godsdammit, Kara, what do you want?' He yelled, clenching his fists, anger momentarily swallowing his arousal. His whole body felt tight still, like his skin might burst if she touched him – but he was bewildered as well, his stomach churning with nerves. She was giving nothing away. If this was not the time, then what was? Lee was determined to get some answers. 'Kara, you said you were leaving – but here you are. Do you want me? Is this you saying goodbye? What do you want?' He asked, breathing hard into her face. Avoiding his gaze, she bit her lip, then suddenly lunged forward, trying to kiss him again. He grabbed her wrists.

'No! We can't solve it this way, you frakking bitch! You know that! Would you talk to me?' Lee wasn't yelling now but speaking low, the force of his words making up entirely for lack of volume. Kara was in turmoil. Why did he want to talk, the bastard? She didn't know what she would say. This was easier, couldn't he see that? Why couldn't they just show each other how they felt? Pulling against his grip, she wrenched her wrists towards her, discovering in that moment just how bloody strong he was. At the last instant he let her go and she fell backwards onto her ass on the hard earth, feeling the breath leave her body.

Kara was back on her feet in an instant, striking out at Lee with her fists. 'You bastard!' She yelled breathlessly, making contact on his shoulder, hitting him with all of her might. 'You bastard, just frak me! Just frak me!' Lee made a fist, drawing it back slowly enough to let her duck easily. For some reason this fuelled her rage, and she drew back her own fist and landed it square on his hard jaw. The force of it made her knuckles feel like they had burst. Lee, caught by surprise, flew backwards into the grass. Blood trickled slowly from his lip as he lay, stunned, on the dusty earth. Kara flew to his side.

'Oh, gods, Lee, I'm sorry!' She thought back to the time that she had shot him by accident - the sight of him lying on the hard metal floor, blood flowing from his body, had wrenched her heart until it felt bruised. She felt the same way now. 'Lee, I hurt you so much ... I just keep hurting and hurting you. How can you love me?' As soon as the words were out of her mouth she realised what she had said, and waited for regret. It didn't come. She waited a little longer. Still nothing. Feeling the damned weakness of a tear forming, she bent her head, noting his bemused expression, nothing like anger. She kissed him again. The blood she had caused was salt on her tongue, metallic, the taste of guilt.

Lee started to speak, but she kissed him harder, forgetting that he might be hurting. He buried his hands in her hair and kissed her back, rolling them until they lay both on their sides, barely touching, just kissing each other with nobody in control, nobody on top or underneath. Lee wasn't hurt at all by what she had done. Rather it cheered him, that she should feel that kind of anger, that kind of passion towards him. She had mentioned love. He ran his hands over the long length of her body, stroking her as if she was nothing but a woman. She sure felt like one. After all that they had been through, that they should be here now – just making out, like any other couple – felt surreal, dreamlike. Starbuck kissed the bruise on his jaw, causing a wave of pain to shoot along his face. Right, not just a normal couple.

Lee rolled her over again, lifting her up until she straddled him with her strong thighs. He could see the sun shining directly on her face as he gazed at her from the ground. The glow of it defined her strong features and gave her skin a smooth, clean look, like milk. He moved deliberately now, sliding his hands under the hem of her shirt, drawing it up her body. The skin that grazed his knuckles was so smooth it was as if it wasn't there. Starbuck raised her arms, finishing what he had started, flinging the layer of fabric away. Lee bit the side of his lip at the sight of her body, tasting faint remnants of his own blood. Kara shook her head, settling her hair back into place, then caught the look on his face and grinned, pure mischief again, arching her body for his benefit and shaking her head once more, slower. She felt the answering tense of his stomach. She was used to this part.

Last time they had been here it had been in darkness, each sight barely seen, almost forbidden – but here, in the glorious sunlight, she saw the expression on his face, his jaw clenched even as he smiled that smile she knew so well, a sardonic grin as if to say, 'oh well, so be it.' He loved her. She knew that. For some reason, the knowledge didn't terrify her anymore. Looking down, the nakedness of his torso was a tantalising sight – all that beautiful muscle – and even as his hands slid up the sides of her body to cup her breasts, Starbuck slid down, rubbing her face against the taut skin of Lee's chest.

His hands found them anyway, gripping gently, cupping the soft, full flesh so that it swelled through his fingers, the nipples so hard they felt like pebbles against his palms. Lee made a small 'ahhh' sound, somewhere between a growl and a moan, then sucked in his breath as Kara took his nipple in her teeth and bit down. 'Ka-ra!' He said slowly, almost another moan, not sure what he meant by it. She kept biting, taking his flesh in her mouth, reaching down his body with her hand to find the hard length that lay against her thigh. Unzipping his trousers, she pulled them off in a second, so quickly he almost didn't notice she'd done it. Then she was back at his mouth again. Caressing his lips with her tongue, with her lips, kissing his face, her breath hot on the skin of his jaw.

Stiff grass tickled his backside, prickling uncomfortably against the bare skin of his back. Lee was sweating now, the previously glorious heat of the sun turning him sticky, slick. Starbuck wrapped her hand firmly around his cock and Lee forgot everything.

Small whimpering sounds were coming from somewhere far away, like a tiny animal caught in a trap. Lee realised with a feeling of trepidation that the sounds were rising from his own throat, helpless as that animal, as Kara stroked the painfully hard length of him, now taking her hand away to gently caress his balls, her fingers stroking first one side, then the other, not enough, not nearly enough. 'Please,' he begged, not caring anymore how he sounded. She had his face fixed in her sights, her mouth wide in a big grin, obviously enjoying the torture. Lee felt the old challenge rise up in him again, beyond the terrible pleasure of her hand. He could beat this. He had to.

Sitting up, Lee grabbed Kara by the hips, sliding her pants off before she could catch her breath. She let out a whoop as he flipped her onto her back, only just letting go of him in time. He felt the tender skin catch on her nails and sucked in a breath, pressing himself onto her hard to eradicate the pain. She arched her body into his, clearly enjoying this change in him. His hands roamed her naked body, keeping her pinned under him. They slid over the unbelievable softness of her breasts, the sweet round of her buttocks, where the last remnants of the cool river lingered.

Lee deliberately skimmed past the heat that he could feel elsewhere, concentrating on memorising her body, the tender skin of her arms, the curve of her back. She was writhing underneath him, reaching for him again. He grabbed the wrist of her wandering hand and pinned it up above her head, then pulled the other one up to meet it. She wrapped her legs around him and tried to roll them both so that she was on top. Lee pulled back his head and shook it, the challenge in his own eyes now. 'You're not getting on top this time. You are not in control, do you hear me?' She shook her head, refusing to hear him. She was strong too. But not as strong as Lee was. He held her down easily, pinned with the weight of his body, the strength of his hands on her wrists.

Leisurely now, Lee dipped his head, kissing his way down her neck until he reached the hard point of her nipple. He teased it slowly, caressing with his tongue until she growled in her throat, anger and arousal and frustration. The sound of it was music to his ears. He gave in and sucked in deep, repeating on the other side, glorying in the feel of the full flesh against his tongue, the musky scent of her skin. She writhed beneath him like a snake, angry, deadly. Alive.

Lee was enjoying the game, but he could sense that Starbuck would soon be pushed too far. He wanted to push her, though. He wanted her to surrender control to him, to allow him into her world and not just her body. Body was a good start, however. With that in mind he reached up to kiss her again, tenderly, drawing one imprisoning hand slowly down her arm to stroke her face. He threw all the love that he felt for her into that deep, slow kiss, so much love that she couldn't possibly mistake it. After a moment her body tensed, the cheek cupped in his hand still and frozen. He drew back and watched her, waiting. Waiting for her response.

Starbuck pulled hard against his restraining hand and he let her go easily, watched her roll on her side away from him. Her naked body glowed in the afternoon light, golden rather than white. She wasn't perfect, wasn't even woman-shaped, really, being more straight up and down, her breasts on the small side, her body muscular rather than slim. Lee had never wanted anybody more. That old longing swept over him as he watched her withdraw, yet again, running from his love. From their love.

Rolling back over, Starbuck met his eyes with a rueful grin, spreading her arms out wide. He drank in the sight of her, naked and vulnerable in the clear light of day. She was letting him see her. Her hands beckoned, drawing him in. Disbelieving, but grateful, Lee felt her wrap her body around him, her legs coming tight around his lean hips, ankles locked behind his back. He slid his hands behind her head, fingers deep in her hair, supporting her as she opened herself to him. The grin was gone, replaced by something else. A real smile. Heart swelling with joy, Lee bent down to kiss her and felt her hand slip between his legs, guiding him inside.

He slid into her welcoming warmth as naturally as if he had been doing it all of his life. The rush of sensation made him groan helplessly, joyful and overwhelmed at the rightness of it, this time, last time, blending together to create fear and longing far stronger than before_. How can you long for someone when you actually have them?_ He wondered, then realised that he still didn't have her, not really. He thrust himself into her, deeply, deliberately, watching her face as he did so, watching as he finally affected her. She closed her eyes with each thrust, an expression akin to pain on her face, though he knew she didn't hurt. He buried his head in her shoulder and thrust deeper. Kara kept her hands tight on his back, letting him take charge, rising slowly to meet his rhythm. He deserved this. She had put him through so much.

Kara was amazed by how much she felt with Lee inside her. She was no stranger to sex – no stranger to sex with Lee, even. Sex was another way to control, to prove to herself that she was a screw-up, that she deserved pain. But this was different, somehow. He was making such slow, sweet love to her it was as if they were not two people, but one, one slow thrust, one long ribbon of almost unbearable sensation. She was allowing him control, and she didn't even know why. She only knew she felt safe, and that the beauty of his body had almost nothing to do with it, as wonderful as it was. She wanted him to be inside her forever, just thrusting slowly, connecting the two of them as if they would never break apart. His head, buried in her shoulder as if for comfort, almost broke her heart. He was asking her for trust. She wanted him to have it.

Running her hands up the hard length of his back, sliding her fingers gently through his hair, Starbuck lifted Lee's head and forced him to meet her eyes. He did so reluctantly, still afraid of what they would say. The light of the dying sun lit them in direct glow, changing the green back to hazel, the brown returned. Darkness was a deep part of Starbuck, he knew. But there was something else there, in the depths – something he had spied more than once, before it flipped away like a fish to the depths of the river. He saw the love that she had hidden from him for so long, tamped down and covered up and masked and crushed. He still didn't know why she did that. But after all those painful years here it was. Again.

Abruptly, without warning, rage took Lee over once more. How dare she love him now? How dare that bitch keep him guessing, put him through crap, through torture? Gripping her shoulders hard enough to bruise, Lee thrust into her suddenly, faster than before, angry as he moved. He watched her eyes fly open in surprise. The love skittered away again, replaced by a matching rage, an angry fear. Setting her jaw, she rose up to meet his thrust, their bodies colliding with a bruising force. Again and again they thrust, Lee gaining speed as her forced her harder, Starbuck determined, matching his rhythm blow for blow, anger for anger. He slid his hands down her thighs and pulled them apart, unlocking her ankles and pushing her legs up, spreading her until she was helpless beneath his assault.

They were panting now, breathing hard, Lee ignoring Kara's cries as he drove still harder, his bruised lip clenched tight between his teeth. Sweat dripped from his forehead onto her bare breasts and he gripped one in his hand, feeling the slide and wobble of full flesh, the heat rising thick from her skin. She wasn't backing down. Neither was he.

Lee slid his other hand through her hair and gripped tight, pulling her head back, forcing her to meet his angry eyes. She met them square. 'Damn ... you ... bitch ...' He panted, matching each word to a thrust, as if he might force his anger inside her, to make her see. She felt sweat trickle down the side of her face and then realised it was a tear. Her tear. He was pouring all of his hurt into this rage and she was feeling it, every drop. She had hurt him so badly.

But he had hurt her, too, the bastard! Taking that sad little Dee for a wife. She was angry too, with him. He raised himself up to thrust still harder, letting go of her head, and she grabbed his, pulling him down for a bruising kiss. She rolled so that she was on top and then stopped, not letting him move at all, and he flipped her straight back onto her back again, holding her down with the weight of his body. 'Oh, no you don't,' he panted, breath hot in her ear. 'Not this time. Not this time, you hear me? No!' His words spurred her on and she thrust hard against him, the power of his body arousing her to an almost unbearable peak, and he continued as though he would never stop. She fell back and absorbed his rage; let it flow through her body until she started to shake, feeling the power of a storm start to surge through her, the shaking intensity so deep that she almost passed out.

Every nerve in her body lit up like the sun on the new Earth, fizzing her brain, a distant scream letting her know that she cried out, that she thundered her joy to the deaf sky. And to Lee. As she slowly drifted back home, Lee's arms still wrapped tight and hard around her, she saw that his face had changed, that the sweat on his face now mixed with slow tears. He had slowed down, too, pushing into her gently, holding her in his arms like a precious doll as she came back to him. Her brain was fuzzy like a cotton wad, fizzing and spitting and taking her far out of control. She wrapped her arms tightly around him and tucked her head in, feeling an unbelievable tenderness, wanting him to feel what she had felt. Wanting him to believe.

She kissed the tears off his cheeks and slid her hand down to his back, encouraging him to pick up again, to go a little faster. As he obeyed, Kara felt every nerve in her body start to hum once more, the sensation as pleasurable as it was almost unbearable. Gripping him tightly, she pulled him in deep, fastening her teeth to his shoulder as he sped up, no anger this time, just a march towards completion. Faster and faster he thrust, hands gripping her head tightly, his eyes boring into hers with no secrets, just truth, and she dropped the last of her masks – the tender one – and let him see it – let him see that he was everything. That she wanted to stay.

The truth of that, together with the sudden kiss that Lee pressed upon her swollen, over-sensitive lips, pushed them both over the edge. Kara felt Lee's first long shudder and answered with one of her own, not a sudden storm this time, but a long, long curling stream, a stream that seemed to flow through and around her body and swirl inside her brain. Maybe Leoben knew what he was talking about after all. She felt Lee shaking and jerking in her arms, crying out to the blue sky, and answered him in kind, their yells to the world heard not by no-one, not forgotten, not disregarded as nothing. They were cries of triumph. Cries of absolution that matched the cheering in their bodies, the final rush that erased both their brains and let them float for a while, mindless, complete.

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	4. Chapter 4

Lee skimmed his way back to the Earth slowly, arms locked around Kara, the curve of her body delicious against his. This felt awfully familiar. Mentally, he reviewed the situation. Amazing sex. Declarations of love. This time, though – no battlestar. No Anders – he was a cylon, currently on a collision course with the sun. No Dee – he felt a brief pang – she had committed suicide on Galactica after they had found the first Earth. No CAP. No CAG. No rank, no military, no quorum – nothing, in fact, to keep them apart. Except Kara herself.

Kara leaned back in Lee's arms, content just for a moment to let the time lie, to enjoy what she had. Lee's hand brushed her shoulder, though, and he pulled her backwards into the hard heat of his body, his eyes flitting dazed over her face. He stroked the hot curve of her cheek, slowly noting the great circle of flattened grass, rich with the musky scents of their love, and the sun dropping over the edge of the earth like fire. He sighed for a moment, then spoke reluctantly. 'So what are you, Kara? Your Raptor exploded. You died. But here you are. Do you know why?' He stopped, then spoke again. 'Is that why you have to leave?'

Starbuck leaned back in his sheltering arm, regarding him seriously, nodding. 'I do know. Leoben said I had a destiny. That I was to lead mankind to their end – this planet. I think that I was resurrected to fulfil my destiny.'

'So – you're real? You're a real person?' Lee was only a little surprised. 'But – you've fulfilled your destiny now. The humans are safe. We've come to our final place, I know it. So,' he paused, not wanting to say it. Then sighed again. 'So – why are you still here?'

Starbuck smiled slowly, that same wide, welcoming smile that he had fallen in love with so many years ago, on the front steps of his brother's house, completely caught unawares. The same smile that he had been unable to ignore since that day. Then she spoke. 'I think that that wasn't all of my destiny. Yes, I was supposed to lead mankind to their end. I was a harbinger of death. But the scripture isn't everything. Leoben doesn't know everything. You know what I think, Lee?'

Lee swallowed. 'What do you think, Kara?'

'I think that you are my destiny. I think that I'm supposed to love you, and stay with you, and spend the rest of my days here on Earth with you, until you come to your end and I come to mine. That's when my destiny will truly be complete.' She grinned and punched him in the shoulder. 'What do you think?'

Lee shook his head, all of the weight, the burden of wondering and hoping suddenly lifted from his shoulders, as though it had never been. He wrapped his arms tighter around Starbuck, breathing in deep, all of the rich, mysterious scents of her. She was truly a mystery. 'I think that sounds great, Kara. I think for once, you're actually right.' He grinned, and she punched him again, gently this time. 'I love you, Kara Thrace.'

Lee waited, not really worried now, just anticipating. Waiting for his life here on the new Earth to start. Starbuck didn't let him down, dropping her head back on his shoulder with a martyred sigh.

'I love you too, Lee Adama.'

***Ah, finally finished. Reviews welcome and appreciated***


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